Thursday, July 16, 2009

VolleyBall

Volleyball is a team sport that consists of 6 players on either side of a net. Teams score points by grounding the ball on the other team’s side of the net, under certain organized rules. A player on one of the teams serves (tossing it and then hitting it with the hand or arm) to start the rally. The team receiving the serve must not let the ball touch their court, hitting the ball up to three times legally. The first two this are usually to set up an attack, almost ensuring the other team won’t be able to keep the ball from hitting their court. The team that wins the rally earns one point and serves the ball in the next rally. Many techniques have evolved in the sport of volleyball, including spiking and blocking, and because both of these plays are made above the net, the vertical jump is an athletic skill important in the sport. Other techniques include passing and setting.

A well-known volleyball strategy is to use player specialization, when each player does one play. There are 5 specialties in the elite league; setters, liberos (lee-beh-ros), middle blockers or middle hitters, outside or left-side hitters, and opposite or right-side hitters. A setter’s main task is to aim the ball into the air where the attackers can aim it into the opponent’s court. Liberos are responsible for defending the court from serves or attacks from the opposing team. Liberos cannot play any other role during that match, so they wear a different color jersey than the rest of their team. Middle blockers are players that can perform or block very fast attacks. The outside hitter is usually the most consistent hitter on the team, and gets the most sets, from their place near the left antenna and Opposite hitters are players that carry the most defensive workload on the team, and are to put up a well-formed block against the opponent’s outside hitters.
There are many variations of volleyball, but one very common variations is the basic competitive indoor volleyball. The two other most well- known variations are beach, and indoor sand volleyball. Although there are many others, such as blind-volleyball and foot volley, most people mainly play on indoor, or beach/sand courts.

~Shante (lilmzrockstar)

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